Healthy, Balanced Diet Options in Indian Vegan Foods
Any doctor would agree that it is important for our food to be “well-balanced” in nutrition. But because of the hustle culture, combined with the fast-food culture, and maybe even some laziness, most of us do not have healthy food. Are you a vegan or a transitioning vegan, looking for healthy options in Indian cuisine? Then this post would be food for your mind today! ;)
India and Variety:
When it comes to India, you have to admit that the variety and diversity is just fascinating. There are so many different languages, forms of art such as different forms of dance and music, cultures, places to visit and live in, religious festivals, clothing and dressing, and of course, the most important of all, food varieties! Almost every state could boast of some unique traditional, staple, and festive foods. Not only is this because of the differences in culture but also because of the differences in availability of food products. Someone who calls themselves a “foodie” must try authentic preparations from most of these places — you won’t regret at all!
The Food We Have Everyday:
Despite there being so much variety in both foods prepared and the availability of ingredients, sadly these days, most of us seem to have adapted ourselves to the fast food culture. Or we want food that is praised by others as “tasty”. You are not alone if, while at home, your food is mostly the same with slight variations, when you go out to restaurants, you want to have foods from some different cuisine, which either includes a lot of unhealthy items or processed foods, and for snacks, you prefer fried foods, like chips and savouries, or biscuits, and sweets, and packed drinks. In south India, dosas and idli are the most common breakfast items with sambar and chutneys as sides, and in most parts of north India, rotis with some sabzi are the common go-to. Evidently, the food that we have does not include much variety at all.
What Makes Our Food Choices Unhealthy?
- Most of our meals are high in carbohydrates, low in proteins, and even lower in many other nutrients.
- Too much processed food: Because of cultural changes, economic conditions, and laziness, we want to have foods that are readily available — ready-to-cook or easy-to-use foods. While this saves time, it certainly does affect our health in the long run.
- There is not enough variety.
Solving The Problem:
To solve this problem, I decided to make a list of food ingredients that are available across the country, including mostly ingredients that are predominantly used and available in most parts of the country and also some other ingredients that could be available only in select parts of the country. These ingredients were then classified into different food categories for my own understanding.
Before going further, understand that this is a list of vegan food ingredients, so you won’t find cow’s milk or chicken breast or fish or ghee or butter or honey, no matter how commonly these are used in India.
Breaking Down Available Indian Vegan Food Ingredients into Different Categories:
This chart shows us that a whopping majority of the foods available are vegetables (including cruciferous vegetables, gourds, and root vegetables), and another majority, obviously, comprises fruits.
From what we know about our food consumption, one problem seemingly is that we use more cereals in our daily foods and less raw vegetables and don’t consume many fruits. This means that whether we are aware of it or not, we miss out on a lot of nutrients (and even taste)!
Making Well-balanced Meals:
One key solution would be keeping meals nutritiously well-balanced, as we all know that a balanced diet is healthy diet. Most of our main dishes are high in carbohydrates, and we rarely take some of the most commonly available, healthy vegetables and fruits. Let’s change this style of cooking and instead aim to have more vegetables and fruits and less carbohydrate-rich foods.
The vegetables section has been broken down into “vegetables”, “cruicferous vegetables”, “gourd vegetables”, “root vegetables”, and “greens” to remind us to include various options. If you have common vegetables like lady’s fingers, brinjals, and beans often, try to make it more inclusive from here on. Make sure that your food every week includes all these types of vegetables, and most certainly different types of greens. By doing so, you will gain more vitamins and minerals.
While using carrots, potatoes, beans, lady’s fingers, bottle gourds, bitter gourds, cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes and onions can be common in most Indian states, try including easily available, less frequently used vegetables such as ivy gourd, ridge gourd, beetroot, radish, cluster beans, pumpkin, drumstick, yam, spring onions, mushrooms, and greens other than the ones you buy/use more frequently. If you don’t consume greens at all, this better be your wake-up call!
Along with commonly used ingredients, cereal varieties such as white rice and Basmati rice, processed foods such as semolina and noodles, and flour varieties such as wheat flour, mixed flour, and all-purpose flour, make sure that you consume a significant amount of protein throughout the day. For protein, it’s not processed food like protein bars that we suggest, but more natural ingredients. In pulses and millets, too, make sure that there is variety round the week. Every week, have a mix of chickpeas, pigeon peas, Bengal gram, Moong gram, kidney beans and other varieties.
In fruits as well, instead of always going for the common fruit choices like banana, orange, lemon, apple, pineapple, papaya, and grapes, while these are all healthy options, still include other fruits, too. Have fruits, not fruit juices more frequently. And totally avoid ready-made, packed “fruit juices”; they are of no use.
Also, look at the chart: consider the number of nuts and seeds that are available for us, yet how frequently do we consume many of these? Add nuts, dry fruits, and seeds to your daily food as well. While you might not be aware of it, most spices fall under this category, like cumin seeds and mustard seeds for example. But the goal is variety. Instead of using roasted or masala peanuts as one among the many snack options (which again include mostly processed foods or fried foods), change your snack choices as well.
Avoid deeply-fried foods as much as you can. This includes vada and bajji, mixture, puri, manchurian, cutlets, chips, and such. Also, avoid fast foods like pizzas, burgers, rolls, sandwiches, etc. These are high-calorie foods; they do more harm than good.
Time to move on from the idli/dosa-chutney, roti-sabzi, puttu-kadala curry, rice-sambar-potato-fry, upma, parotta-kurma, puri-masala, and bread. What are you missing out on? Check out the pie-chart for reference when you go out to buy groceries and vegetables the next time. To a healthy, vegan lifestyle! 💚🥂🤗
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